> If local adaptation weren't "a thing," there would be no subspecies of Apis mellifera.

Multiple assumptions are made here, without any support.

First, subspecies are a result of mutations, and mutations are not "adaptation" to a condition, they are without purpose.

There is no reason to jump to a conclusion that any mutation bestows some inherent "improvement".  The differences within Apis mellifera are so negligible as to prompt questions about the legitimacy of the fiercely-protected  

Ernst Mayr explained this best - speciation is *most* likely in groups of what start out as the same beastie are geographically isolated from one another.
The isolated populations breed only among themselves, so it is isolation alone that creates the divergence.
 
But this does not imply that any of these divergences give any subspecies an advantage over others, or makes it "more fit" for the conditions.  Just the opposite - all subspecies of bees do quite well anywhere from the equator to as far north (or south) as they can survive winter.

The African bee has a behavioral trait (absconding when dearths occur) that makes them better-adapted to their native range, and poorly adapted to anywhere with a winter worthy of mention, but these may be "the original bee", where the "adaptation" was the survival of bees that did not abscond, but instead raised less brood, threw off less swarms, and did not consume stores needed to overwinter.  This is about the only example I can think of where "natural selection" in two distinctly different areas favored opposite extremes of a trait within what started as a single population.

But speciation just happens, even though Apis mellifera will readily interbreed between subspecies, if hives are moved by man, showing that there is very high functional similarity, even among the extremes cited above, yielding the hybrid "africanized bee".

Thos proclaiming themselves experts in beekeeping and biology don't impress me much on this issue, see:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/world/europe/austria-bees-carinthia-carniolan.html
https://tinyurl.com/249ntabn

There's a similar cult dedicated to preserving the "Amm / Native Black Bee" in the UK and Ireland.  Whatever that means. 

But when things got nasty down in Florida, and beekeepers started calling the state apiarist for airstrikes on "hot hives", Jerry Hayes implemented a fast genetic test to triage between Africanized and non-Africanized, as nothing less was a reliable test.

Clearly, selecting based on things like wing morphometrics and color merely assures that you end up with bees with those specific characteristics and says NOTHING about their actual genetics that have relevance to their behavior and performance under conditions (x, y, z).

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html